Next Time
by kbunny10
Summary: An idea on how Kimiko, Raimundo, and Clay met for the first time before episode 1 of the series.


A/N: I had a dream last night after not thinking about Xiaolin Showdown for years and I thought it would actually make a good story, so I decided to just go ahead and write it out.

Disclaimer: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown and if I did Kimiko and Raimundo would already be together.

* * *

8:30 A.M. Japan, just before the start of a school day

Students flooded into the previously empty halls of the prestigious academy. Boys and girls chattering endlessly about homework, after school activities, the newest edition of Goo Zombies all interrupted by a sudden "No way seriously?! He said that?!"

A group of giggling teenage girls walked into the bathroom continuing their conversation. "I know, right? So then I said-"Kimiko faded in and out of paying attention. Things had been weird at home recently and as much as she tried to act normal it was exhausting at times. By "weird at home" things like random fires starting seemingly from a snap of Kimiko's fingers. Things like this hadn't happened since she was young, she thought she had learned to contain it.

"Hey Kim you okay?" Kimiko looked over at the concerned face of her best friend Keiko. "You seem out of it?" Kimiko quickly put a huge smile on her face.

"Everything's fine! Just tired!" she let out a quick laugh, trying to act normal.

"Well that's a relief," Keiko said. She didn't really seem to buy it but it looked like she wasn't going to bring it up again. "Can I borrow your brush? My hair's been out of whack today."

Kimiko nodded and quickly went to fish the brush out of her bag, as she pulled it out she accidentally hit it on the counter next to her and the brush went flying under there. "Sorry my bad! Like I said tired, I'll get it."

She dropped her bag and got on her hands and knees to climb under the sinks. However, something was odd about this, she didn't remember the area under here being so vast and so dark. No matter how far forward she seemed to crawl it just kept going, not matter how close she thought she was getting to her hair brush the farther away it was. She rubbed her eyes, surely she was just losing it. With an exasperated sigh she went to turn around but there was just a vast sea of blackness behind her, no bathroom no friends. 'What the hell?' she thought, she turned back towards the direction of the brush and saw a light at the end. Reaching out she grabbed the brush and crawled towards the light.

* * *

8:30 P.M. Rio de Jinero Brazil

"Raimundo can you help me put the kids to bed?" His mother let out an exasperated sigh. 7 young children running around the house and she was pregnant with another on the way. Raimundo, being much older than his siblings would regularly help her put them to bed at night.

"Yea ma, one sec." He left his pencil laying carelessly on the paper he had been writing out. His homework was to write out some sort of poem about something he was passionate about. No matter what he tried to come up with his mind just kept returning to the wind, something that was definitely not going to help him with that assignment.

He found his mother stuck in place, holding two toddlers while two of the older kids clung to her legs. "Could you?" she asked helplessly, motioning to the two clinging to her ankles.

When he got the two boys to their room and into their beds the younger one started pouting. "I need some warm milk before I can go to sleep." Raimundo sighed. "Pleeeease?" his brother whined, making a pouty face the whole time.

"Yea yea, one sec." Raimundo said chuckling. "But don't you two get any ideas, you stay in bed while I go to get that." The two boys nodded and Raimundo headed off towards the kitchen.

As he grabbed the carton and a glass though, he found his thoughts drifting back towards the wind. Recently it seemed to match up with however he was feeling and it would change as soon as his feelings changed. He was pulled from his thoughts when the microwave went off. After grabbing the glass, he headed back towards his brothers' room, but something was off, the whole house was quiet. It no longer sounded like his mom was struggling to put all the kids to bed, in fact it almost sounded like the whole house was empty. "Alright you guys better not have fallen to sleep after asking me for thi-" The room was empty when he opened the door.

"Seriously guys? I told you not to move!" he set the glass down on the night stand and stared in frustration at the empty beds in the room. "You guys better not be bugging mom in her room!" He said turning around to exit the room, only to find that the entire house was now engulfed in darkness. All Raimundo could make out was a bright light in the distance.

"I've gone crazy." He mumbled while staring at the light. Not seeing another option, he sighed and headed towards it, thinking at the very least it had to be some sort of prank.

* * *

6:30 P.M. a Texas Ranch

"Clay you were supposed to bring the cattle in hours ago!" His father shouted as the tall blonde quickly ran and hopped on his horse.

"I'm tellin you, Jessie said she would handle it!" Clay said. Things had been strained with his sister for a while though so he shouldn't have been surprised that she would do something like this. Clay himself had been distracted, something about himself had changed and he wasn't quite sure what it was. The earth around him seemed to be different, like it was waiting for him to change it.

"Just go get them!" His father called again.

Clay sighed and commanded his horse to head off in the direction of the cattle. The closer he got to them the darker things seemed to get though. This was odd considering how early it was really. There seemed to be a campfire near the cattle, or something bright. So, he just kept riding in that direction, hoping to eventually reach them.

* * *

7:30 A.M. Xiaolin Temple, China

When Kimiko finally emerged in the light she appeared to be in the garden of some sort of temple. She touched her hair but was relieved to find that it hadn't gotten messed up in the bushes. She stood up and brushed out her school uniform. Slowly, she turned around and took everything in. "Keiko I swear to god if you put something in my drink..." she mumbled under her breath. Her eyes settled on two other boys also taking in the look of the garden, a tall dark skinned seemingly Brazilian boy and an even taller blonde boy speaking with a southern drawl.

"I was just riding towards my cattle and suddenly I'm here, not even my horse is here, just me." Clay said exasperatedly.

"You think that's bad? I was in the middle of trying to put my SEVEN younger siblings to sleep." Raimundo emphasized the number. "This is really strange though…"

"Looks like we're not alone." Clay said, gesturing towards Kimiko. Raimundo turned around and upon seeing her looked her up and down.

"Hey there cutie, what brought you to this place?" He practically purred.

Kimiko rolled her eyes, putting her hands on her hips. "Well I was trying to get my hair brush out from under the sinks at school. Are we all having some sort of collective hallucination?"

"Seems like it, there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for it. Name's Clay by the way." The Southern gentleman reached out his hand, which Kimiko took gladly and shook.

"My name's Kimiko, it's nice to meet you Clay."

Raimundo put an arm around her. "And my name's Raimundo." Kimiko picked his arm up with one hand and gently moved it off her.

"Take that as your first warning." She grumbled.

Suddenly an older man came up to them in the garden. "Ah I see you all found you way here." The three of them looked very confused but listened intently to what he had to say. "The fact that you were lead here today means that you three are Xiaolin Dragons. A time will come in the near future where you are called upon to come here and assume yours rolls. For now, you will return to where you came from, this was merely a way for me to know who I would be calling upon."

Before they could ask any questions they were each engulfed in a bright light.

* * *

"Kimiko, hey Kimiko. Did you hit your head or something?" Kimiko opened her eyes to find that she was crouched under the bathroom sink still clutching the hair brush. "You've just been sitting there with your eyes closed for a couple minutes now and it was…weird to say the least." Keiko giggled.

Kimiko rubbed her head and stood up. "Oh yea, uh must've hit my head on the way out. I'm fine now though." As she stood up she wondered what happened to the other two. She could always ask them…next time.


End file.
